McKinny v. Board of Trustees

• Decision Date: 22 March 1982
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 642 P.2d 460, 3 Ed. Law Rep. 404 Walter T. McKINNY et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. OXNARD UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF TRUSTEES et al., Defendants and Respondents. L.A. 31382.

Page 549

181 Cal.Rptr. 549

31 Cal.3d 79, 642 P.2d 460, 3 Ed. Law Rep. 404

Walter T. McKINNY et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. OXNARD UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF TRUSTEES et al., Defendants and Respondents.

L.A. 31382.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

March 22, 1982.

Hadden, Waldo & Malley, Camarillo, Thomas E. Malley, Herbert D. Nowlin, Richard C. Gilman, Oxnard, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Nordman, Cormany, Hair & Compton, Larry L. Hines, Glen M. Reiser, Oxnard, for defendants and respondents.

MOSK, Justice.

In 1963, we recognized for the first time the constitutional duty of local school authorities to make an effort to eliminate racial segregation in this state's schools. (Jackson v. Pasadena City School Dist. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 876, 31 Cal.Rptr. 606, 382 P.2d 878.) We reaffirmed and explained the holding of Jackson in Crawford v. Board of Education (1976) 17 Cal.3d 280, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28: "[W]e adhere to this court's decision in Jackson. In California, all public school districts bear an obligation under the state Constitution to undertake reasonably feasible steps to alleviate school segregation, regardless of the cause of such segregation." (Id. at pp. 301-302, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28; see also National Assn. for Advancement of Colored People v. San Bernardino City Unified Sch. Dist. (1976) 17 Cal.3d 311, 130 Cal.Rptr. 744, 551 P.2d 48.) The present case concerns the procedures local school boards must follow when seeking to comply with the mandate of Crawford. We also review the trial court's refusal to enjoin implementation of a desegregation plan adopted by the Oxnard Union High School District in light of the subsequent passage of the "anti-busing" amendment, a 1979 initiative measure amending California Constitution, article I, section 7, subdivision (a). ¹

Crawford clarified the situations in which a school board is obligated to desegregate schools within its boundaries and generally outlined the procedures a board must follow in fulfilling its duty to desegregate. The board must first identify those schools which may properly be classified as "segregated schools," i.e., "schools in which the minority student enrollment is so disproportionate as realistically to isolate minority students from other students and thus deprive minority students of an integrated educational experience.... It is such segregated schools which traditionally have resulted in the inherently unequal educational opportunities condemned in [Brown v. Board of Education (1954) 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873]." (Crawford, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 303, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28.) The court emphasized that the primary objective of a desegregation plan is to achieve a uniformity of educational opportunities for all races by eliminating the detrimental effects of a segregated school system, not to precisely correlate the racial composition of each school with that of the district as a whole. "[The] Constitution does not require a school board to achieve a particular or identical 'racial mix' or 'racial balance' in each school; rather, the constitutional evil inheres in the existence of segregated schools. It is the elimination of such segregation and the harms inflicted by such segregation that is the ultimate constitutional objective." (Crawford, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 285, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28; emphasis in original.)

In determining whether a particular school is segregated, then, the board must consider a number of factors, including these: "the racial composition of its student body[,] ... the racial composition of faculty and administration, and community and school board attitudes toward the school ...." (Crawford, supra, at p. 287, fn. 1, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28.) After identifying any segregated schools within its jurisdiction, the board must develop a plan for alleviating the segregation found to exist. In order to encourage public acceptance of the desegregation plan ultimately chosen and to aid informed decisionmaking, the board should give affected community members a meaningful opportunity to participate in the desegregation process from start to finish. (Crawford, supra, at p. 286, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28.)

The State Board of Education (BOE) responded to Crawford by promulgating regulations designed to implement its constitutional mandate. (Cal.Admin.Code, tit. 5, §§ 90-101.) ² The BOE Regulations recite Crawford's definition of a segregated school (id., § 92, subd. (d)) and detail several criteria for school boards to employ in applying the definition to particular schools (id., § 93, subd. (b)). In addition, the Regulations require community involvement in the desegregation process (id., § 96) and a public hearing with one month's notice to "parents of all students enrolled in the district" (id., § 98). The BOE also issued "guidelines" to explain its regulations to local school boards. (Cal. State Bd. of Education, Guidelines: Plans to Alleviate Racial and Ethnic Segregation of Minority Students (Apr. 12, 1978) (Guidelines).)

In attempting to fulfill its duties under Crawford and the BOE Regulations, the Oxnard Union High School District (District) conducted statistical surveys of the following characteristics of each of its schools: (1) the racial/ethnic composition of students (as required by Cal.Admin.Code, tit. 5, § 97); (2) the racial/ethnic composition of faculty and staff; (3) the racial/ethnic distribution of student participation in athletics and school-related activities; and (4) the buildings and equipment. In addition, based on nominations from each principal in the District, the Board of Trustees (Board) established a twenty-two-person advisory committee composed of ten parents (three of whom were also teachers), five students, five principals, and two administrators. Eleven of the committee members were from minority groups. The District supplied each member with a workbook containing summaries of the various statistical surveys and general information about the committee's function within the desegregation process--i.e., to identify which high schools appeared to be racially segregated and to suggest to the Board a plan for remedying any segregation found to exist.

The District contains five high schools: Camarillo, Channel Islands, Hueneme, Oxnard, and Rio Mesa. In determining whether any of those schools was segregated, the committee members examined five criteria: "(1) The racial and ethnic composition of each school in the district by numbers and percentages, including changes which have occurred in the racial and ethnic composition of each school in the preceding five years, as compared with such data for the district as a whole ...; (2) Data on the racial and ethnic composition of the administrative, certificated and classified staff at each school; (3) The attitudes of the community, administration and staff as to whether each school is a 'minority' or 'non-minority' school; (4) The quality of the buildings and equipment; (5) The organization of, and participation in, extracurricular activities." (Cal.Admin.Code, tit. 5, § 93, subd. (b).) The committee members voted on which schools they viewed as segregated according to each of the five criteria, concluding that Channel Islands and Oxnard High Schools were segregated and that the other three schools were not. ³

Although primarily directing their attack to the Board's procedure, plaintiffs also appear to challenge the substantive correctness of the determination that Camarillo High School was not segregated. Insofar as they do, we recognize that courts apply a deferential standard of review to such determinations. "School districts are agencies of the state for the local operation of the state school system." (Hall v. City of Taft (1956) 47 Cal.2d 177, 181, 302 P.2d 574.) As we explain below, the development of a desegregation plan is a quasi-legislative function. "It is established that in reviewing quasi-legislative actions of administrative agencies the scope of judicial review is limited to an examination of the proceeding before the agency to determine whether its actions have been arbitrary, capricious or entirely lacking evidentiary support, or whether it has failed to follow the procedure or give the notices required by law." (County of Orange v. Heim (1973) 30 Cal.App.3d 694, 719, 106 Cal.Rptr. 825; see also California Hotel & Motel Assn. v. Industrial Welfare Com. (1979) 25 Cal.3d 200, 211-212, 157 Cal.Rptr. 840, 599 P.2d 31; Pitts v. Perluss (1962) 58 Cal.2d 824, 833-835, 27 Cal.Rptr. 19, 377 P.2d 83; Ray v. Parker (1940) 15 Cal.2d 275, 303-312, 101 P.2d 665.) A corollary to the rule is that an administrative agency exercising a quasi-legislative function is not required to make detailed findings of fact. (Ensign Bickford Realty Corp. v. City Council (1977) 68 Cal.App.3d 467, 473, 137 Cal.Rptr. 304; cf. Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles (1974) 11 Cal.3d 506, 513-518, 113 Cal.Rptr. 836, 522 P.2d 12.)

The main basis for plaintiffs' contention that the Board acted arbitrarily in determining that Camarillo High School was not segregated is the District's student racial composition survey, which reveals that Camarillo High School was approximately 86 percent white and 14 percent minority in 1979. However, "from a constitutional standpoint, we see nothing inherently invalid in the fact that percentages of various racial or ethnic groups may vary, even significantly, in different schools throughout a school district, or even that a particular minority group may be completely unrepresented in a particular school." (Crawford, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 304, 130 Cal.Rptr. 724, 551 P.2d 28.) The Board could rationally have concluded, based on the advisory committee members' perception that Camarillo High School was not segregated, that the admittedly substantial disparity between minority and white racial percentages at...